Zachary Levi’s performance is fine. He’s a gifted comedic actor who replicates what he did in the first Shazam!, and it mostly works. However, Asher Angel’s Billy Batson is almost 18 in this film, and he’s going through a lot of changes that have some repercussions on his personality. That would be perfectly fine… if Levi didn’t act as a 14-year-old still. Billy’s superhero persona can’t stop telling jokes and making a fool of himself, so that the viewer feels as if Levi and Angel were playing two totally different characters. Levi’s version of Billy starts becoming a parody of himself, a watered down, PG-13 version of Deadpool. Confusion doesn’t stop here – Billy’s older foster sister Mary is played by Grace Caroline Currey both as a human and as a superhero. That’s the only case in the cast, and as harsh as it may sound, Currey’s line delivery for either one feels straight out of a high school play. Lastly, Rachel Zegler gives it her all as Anthea, but hers is probably the worst written character of the film, switching sides randomly with no setup nor character arc whatsoever.

Moving on to more positive notes – Jack Dylan Grazer’s Freddy is once again a scene stealer, and by far the most interesting character. Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu and Djimon Hounsou visibly have fun with their roles and are pretty entertaining to watch, despite the underdevelopment in their characters – the villains are evil because the script requires them to be, and the Wizard lacks the charisma and spookiness of the first film.

The great practical sets try to make up for the disappointing CGI

Diving into some more technical aspects, the cinematography, soundtrack and camera work all do their job pretty decently. Sure, it’s no Lord of the Rings (nor Raimi’s Spider-Man, for that matter), but it doesn’t demand nor pretend to be – it’s perfectly aligned with the mission of the film, and with its predecessor’s style. After all, it’s a comedy-action film, and the technical compartment serves its purpose. An effective aspect that may surprise the viewer in a positive way, is the care and attention that went into set-building. The Rock of Eternity in particular, i.e. the mystical cave that serves as the headquarters for Billy and his gang, is spectacular, and the way the teenagers transformed it into some kind of hideout cove is believable and amusing. Moreover, the character and costume design needs a shout-out – while the heroes are all pretty standard stuff, the villains’ costumes look good, and the design of the mythical creatures spawning from the Golden Apple are awesome.

There is a negative aspect, though, and that would be the visual effects. From this perspective, Shazam! Fury of the Gods is on par with some other superhero content released in the past two years. Despite tons of means, the film is a feast of shoddy CGI that often makes the graphic look like a PS3 videogame. The effects are kind of convincing whenever all the surroundings are created digitally, but as soon as they mix with actual people, the green screens are painfully evident, and the CG models lack the physicality required to balance out the live action components. One might let that slide if this was an indie production, but quite frankly it’s unacceptable for a $125 million blockbuster.

Summing up

Taking all of this into consideration, Shazam! Fury of the Gods is a huge step down from its predecessor, and an honest rating wouldn’t go beyond 2.5/5. It’s not a terrible movie, but a frustratingly mediocre one. It had a lot of potential and some cool ideas in the chamber, but it was all sacrificed in favor of an unjustified need to go bigger and flashier. Plus, the oversaturation of the superhero genre made the audience a lot more demanding to the new entries nowadays, and that doesn’t help either. Should you be looking for a movie to turn off your brain for a couple hours, you can stream this film on HBO Max. Mind you, though – it won’t turn into a better, smarter version of itself even if you scream “Shazam!” at the top of your lungs.